[ciaranob]

All,

I know it is heresy to some but occasionally I get lazy and run the Mini through the local touch free car wash. What worries me a little is that on exit the engine emits a fair amount of steam from the hood presumably due to water being forced in the air scoop and elsewhere. The second time I had it washed I made sure to at least turn off the engine in the hope of limiting the intake but should I be concerned at all? Plan to wash this puppy myself in future to avoid the problem altogether but curious if this is really an issue at all.

Cheers, Ciaran.

[Paul]

Shouldn't be a problem at all. Smoke I'd worry about, steam not really.

[ciaranob]

[quote=Paul Mullett]Shouldn't be a problem at all. Smoke I'd worry about, steam not really.

I guess I'd heard some horror stories of Mini Cooper S's in very heavy rain/near flood condidtions having their engines ruined due to the low air intake 'breathing' in too much water, basically trashing the engine. Obviously this is no where near this situation but was a little concerned nonetheless (is sort of embarassing parked in traffic with what looks like an overheated engine!!

Ciaran.

[Dutchy]

[quote=ciaranob]

Quote: Originally Posted by Paul Mullett

Shouldn't be a problem at all. Smoke I'd worry about, steam not really.

I guess I'd heard some horror stories of Mini Cooper S's in very heavy rain/near flood condidtions having their engines ruined due to the low air intake 'breathing' in too much water, basically trashing the engine. Obviously this is no where near this situation but was a little concerned nonetheless (is sort of embarassing parked in traffic with what looks like an overheated engine!!

Ciaran.

I know from personal experience that the MINI Cooper S can go through some pretty deep water (maybe I was lucky). On my last trip we were caught out with some heavy rain and we had to go through some creek crossings to get home. The first one we needed help from a 4WD to create a bow wave and with the traction control on, we made it through. The next one was at 2meters, so we had to wait until it was down to a reaonable depth (about 200mm, after a 12hr wait) the last one was at 400mm and the MINI soldiered on and had no troubles.
To get back on track, I wouldn't have thought that a car wash would be able to get water into the intake and then into the engine? Maybe it's going down the scoop and then onto the engine, that wouldn't cause too much problems I wouldn't have thought.

Long post, sorry.

Dutchy.

[MINIGT50]

Quote: Originally Posted by ciaranob

All,

I know it is heresy to some but occasionally I get lazy and run the Mini through the local touch free car wash. What worries me a little is that on exit the engine emits a fair amount of steam from the hood presumably due to water being forced in the air scoop and elsewhere. The second time I had it washed I made sure to at least turn off the engine in the hope of limiting the intake but should I be concerned at all? Plan to wash this puppy myself in future to avoid the problem altogether but curious if this is really an issue at all.

Cheers, Ciaran.

Not an issue at all IMO. There's another thread about this in faults & fixes, but this happened to me too! Sorry got lazy also!

Anyway it is simply water steaming off of hot parts surrounding the intercooler. This is due to where the scoop is, as on most cars, no water gets in that area, and any water that does get on hot parts dries off, etc. So with the scoop, water hits hot parts, and steams out of or around the scoop area.

[ciaranob]

Thanks for the confirmations guys - good to see a bunch of BRG MCS's, us greens gotta stick together! Dutchy, thats an amazing story wrt 20-40 cm water - one chap here in Houston drove through similar flood waters (not sure exactly how deep) and did indeed ruin his engine. Basically wrote off his Mini but definitely a rare occurence.

Cheers, C.

[kapps]

What was the outside temperature? If it was warm, the steam was most likely due to the intercooler being very hot. Any number of things could have made it steam. A hot radiator or just the water touching something close to the engine would make it steamy pretty quick.

[Tonyt3]

The term for steam coming out of the MCS scoop is 'dragons breath'. Nothing to worry about, as long as theres a reason for there to be moisture coming out (like rain, car wash etc). If your car is totally dry, and the weather is/has been dry and you haven't recently washed your car, then get it looked at.

Steam should be expected on colder days when the engine is hot and there is a possibility of water going into the scoop and getting changed to steam.